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Kicking the habit: two former nuns married in civil ceremony in Italy Kicking the habit: two former nuns married in civil ceremony in Italy
(35 minutes later)
Two former nuns who met in a convent have been joined in a civil union in a ceremony in a small town in northern Italy. Federica and Isabel’s love story was not that unusual, apart from one detail.
The Italian news agency ANSA said the women, who were identified in Italian media only by first names, were supposed to have the ceremony in Pinerolo city hall Thursday, but concern there would be a media scrum after Turin newspaper La Stampa reported their plans prompted the ceremony to be held a day earlier by Mayor Luca Salvai. The affair, which culminated in a civil union this week in the Italian town of Pinerolo, began “slowly” according to their mutual friend, Franco Barbero, who was present at the ceremony. The two had a lot in common, having both decided to devote their lives to charitable work.
Italian lawmakers earlier this year legalized civil unions, angering the Vatican. Italy doesn’t have gay marriage. They fell in love working at a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts, but there was just one hitch.
ANSA said the women, one from southern Italy and the other of South American origins, fell in love while working at a rehabilitation center for drug addicts, and renounced being nuns. Both were already married to the Catholic church.
Federica and Isabel were Franciscan nuns when they met and fell in love, and have both since renounced their vocation and spoken out against the church’s position against homosexuality.
“God wants people happy, to live the love in the light of the sun,” Isabel recently told La Stampa, the Italian daily newspaper. The two brides said that they have not lost their faith and would not otherwise have wanted to leave the church.
“We call upon our church to welcome all people who love each other,” added Federica, her new bride.
The courtship and civil union comes about one year after a Vatican official, Krzysztof Charamsa, publicly abandoned the church after announcing that he was gay and in love. Charamsa was sacked and defrocked after admitting he was in love with another man.
The two women, who were were joined in a civil union in a civil ceremony – the second one performed in the town of Pinerolo since Italy passed legislation to legalise same sex unions earlier this year – are also due to participate in a relgious service by their friend, Barbero, a former priest who was suspended because of his support of gay marriage.
“I must add, for the record, that is not even the first time that I happen to marry two sisters,” he said.